Word: sudeten
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Chamberlain also violated Part I of President Kennedy's golden rule: "We should never negotiate out of fear, but we should never fear to negotiate." Terrified by intelligence reports that exaggerated the reach of the German Luftwaffe, Chamberlain agreed to hand over 3 million Sudeten Germans, even though doing so was more likely to embolden Hitler than placate him. But while Munich was a sellout that showed Hitler how reluctant Britain was to return to war, it was not the cause of World War II any more than the breakdown in talks with Iran could be said...
...latest furor was ignited when Czech Prime Minister Milos Zeman told the Austrian magazine profil that the Sudeten Germans were "Hitler's fifth column." "According to Czech laws," Zeman said, "many Sudeten Germans committed treason, a crime which at that time was punishable by death. If they were expelled or transferred, it was more moderate than the death penalty." The reaction from neighboring countries was swift. "Zeman's statement filled me with consternation," responded Edmund Stoiber, the conservative candidate for German Chancellor in the September elections. Stoiber is premier of Bavaria, where many Sudeten Germans settled, and his wife...
...controversy over the Sudeten Germans comes at a critical time. Germany is in pre-election mode, and the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary all face extremely close elections this year, in all likelihood the last national polls before accession to the E.U. Candidates are looking for an edge as campaigning heats up, and good old-fashioned populism is back in style. "There hasn't been this degree of populist rhetoric since 1989," says Jonathan Stein, an independent political analyst based in Prague. "Politicians are trying to show they are capable of defending national identity, but E.U. integration limits the scope...
That symbolism still means a lot in Central Europe. Although the expulsion of the Sudeten Germans was approved by the Allied Powers at the Potsdam Conference in 1945, a legal basis for the expulsions was charted by a series of decrees issued by Czechoslovak President Edvard Benes. dealing with such things as loss of citizenship and expropriation of property, and those decrees remain on the books to this...
Survivors among the Sudeten Germans want to see the decrees repealed, and they're backed by Jörg Haider, governor of Austria's Carinthia province and a major force in the far-right Freedom Party, part of Austria's ruling coalition. "The Benes Decrees should no longer exist," Haider said. Erika Steinbach, head of Germany's Association of Displaced Persons, agrees: "Who in the year 2002 cannot distance himself from a political event that contradicts all norms of international law and questions the E.U. suitability of his country? Chancellor Schröder is urgently called upon to link...